Maybe I’m writing this announcement in the Oz framework because I get to be Dorothy, the star of this journey. Or maybe it’s because I get to make the connection between the immigrant and refugee communities VFA serves and how Dorothy needed a ton of support to navigate the foreign Land of Oz. And in case people are tempted to make the connection between me and munchkins, I’ll save you the time. Haha, I’m short – now moving on.

The VFA Hiring Committee began by bringing on Carmen D’Arcangelo as the Interim Director in order to help us assess our organizational needs and guide us through this transition. We then launched our regional search hoping to find a leader that possessed all of what we were looking for and were thrilled to receive a strong candidate pool. At the heart of this hiring process, we found that we had the Executive Director at VFA already…and like Dorothy did, we just needed to take this journey to make us believe it.

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to our new Executive Director, James Hong. James has been with VFA for five years now and despite his occasional bad haircuts, we believe he has the brains, heart, and courage needed to help grow our organization.

Through this transition, it confirmed the strength of our leadership team and highlighted the need to create a structure that sets VFA up for continued growth. VFA has created a Deputy Director position and Sarah Tran has graciously accepted to serve in this role in the interim. We are so proud of our team.

VFA is now moving out of transition and into strong long-term leadership. Thank you for your continued love and support for VFA. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon.